Shoppers may be offered multiple shipping options for an order, with each of the options commonly differentiated with respect to cost and speed of delivery. However, consumers may wish to base their shipping decisions upon other factors. For example, consumers may wish to determine and consider the relative environmental impacts or costs of shipping options, in some instances opting for slower and/or more expensive shipping options in exchange for environmental impact cost reductions.
In another aspect, information on shipping option costs and attributes are generally provided by shipping cost and rate algorithms using predetermined, preset and/or static input data to produce cost or time estimates as a function of order attributes (such as item weight and size). Such data and algorithms are not responsive to changing conditions that may affect the actual cost or speed or other attribute of a given shipping option.